A tough pill to swallow in Boca

Imagine raising millions from donors then having to flush the money down the drain.

In a nutshell, that’s what happened this week to Boca Raton Community Hospital. It had to take $29 million out of its fundraising foundation to pay off debts related to its failed effort to build a new 600-bed hospital. The huge payout happened because the hospital used a complicated financing scheme to lock in a low-interest bond financing option. When the hospital chose not to borrow the money after killing plans for the new hospital, it had to pay a huge penalty.

That $29 million is not chump change even in Boca. Imagine how $29 million could have been used to help the health care of the community, recruit new doctors, help the uninsured, boost up community health clinics or buy some pricey medical technology.

Boca Community Board Chair Dick Schmidt said the hospital is fortunate to have a strong fundraising foundation which today has $140 million in assets thanks to strong donations and wise investments. But instead of helping to improve health care of the local community, millions of dollars have now been diverted to bailing out the hospital from the effects of management’s missteps.

The management that made the initial decision to build a new hospital at a time when hospital admissions were falling and the local economy was faltering are now gone or on their way out. The effect of their fateful decisions, though, will linger for many years.